Inconsistent Dub / Anime & Manga

• Girls und Panzer: The English dub of the original series is horribly inconsistent when it comes to the pronounciation of the characters' names. It isn't until episode four or five that this stops, and thankfully it stays consistent for the rest of the show, the OVAs, and the film.
• The 4Kids dub of Ojamajo Doremi often cut any reference to Japanese culture, to the point of removing an entire episode taking place at a Buddhist temple and changing sushi into cheesecake, even though most American kids in the target audience would know what sushi is... But left an episode focusing on Shōgi completely intact. Furthermore, numerous instances of characters wearing kimonos are kept intact in most of the dub, but one later episode airbrushes all kimonos into looking like winter coats. Hell, that same episode was also inconsistent with itself, as one character in that episode kept her kimono and even her Japanese name.
• Pokémon: The Series:
  • Sometimes onigiri (rice balls) are changed into donuts, sometimes they're cookies, you never know. In one episode they actually called them rice balls, possibly experimenting to see if their target audience familiarises with them. Until 4Kids dropped the Pokémon license, they painted over them in later episodes so they looked like subs or peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, even in an episode where a plot point involved a rice ball rolling away. Ever see a sandwich roll down a hill? How about vertically? And then jumping several inches? The "rolling down the hill" incident was the final episode of season 7, and it was also the first case of visually editing the onigiri. Before that the onigiri were left alone visually, but they were called sandwiches/cookies/donuts/popcorn balls/eclairs/etc. 4Kids continued this bizarre visual editing through season 8 until they lost the show (after which they've been left alone and consistently been called rice balls by TPCI).
  • The Elite Four member Lorelei was renamed "Prima" in the dub. This didn't introduce inconsistencies to the anime itself since she only appeared once, but many viewers didn't realize she was the same character from the game. Word of God has it this was because a two-syllable name (she is called Kanna in Japanese) was required to match the lip-sync. Meanwhile, Pokémon Puzzle League, a game which used characters from the anime, stuck with the name Lorelei.
  • Similarly, the S.S. Anne is called by its Japanese name of "St. Anne" in the anime, likely because of the number of paint edits required to change it.
  • In the Made-for-TV Movie The Legend of Thunder, two of the main characters are named Eugene and Vincent. The problem is that when the same characters appeared earlier in the TV show's dub, they were called "Eusine" and "Jackson". Eusine's case was especially bad since he was a character from the games themselves, so the error was even more glaring.
  • The Brazilian dub is particularly egregious. They almost never seem to keep the attack names the same, even getting to the point of mixing them up.
  • The same happens in the Latin American Spanish dub, especially since season 10. Attack names switch back and forth between literal translations of the English names to the names used in the [European] Spanish games. It is worse with cities, which change from literal translations to made up names to European Spanish names to unaltered English names. And Pokémon pronunciations change from one episode to another, and even during the same episode, Pokémon names are pronounced differently depending on the character.
  • The Norwegian dub started out by translating all terms and attacks from English into Norwegian. While the recurring terms were generally translated consistently, attack names that only popped up every 20 episodes or so were all over the place, and words that have no direct parallel in Norwegian, like "Gym" and "badge" tended to jump between equally correct translations constantly. By season 9 they started keeping most terms in English, and aside from this sounding relatively dorky in the first place (with mispronunciations being common), the translators often had trouble differing between actual Pokémon terms (like "Flying Pokémon") and just generic descriptions (like "bird Pokémon" and "forest Pokémon"), keeping them all in English. Other times, they'd translate obvious game terms, like the names of the Battle Frontier facilities, while leaving terms like "nurse" in English.
  • The French dub is high quality overall, consistently using the correct French names for everything (except for a few early episodes where Agent Jenny went by her Japanese name, K-you, making it sound like her name was Agent Caillou). However, there are two versions of the French dub: one for Europe, using the French names, and one for Canada, using the English names for characters and Pokémon. They're both the same dub, however, with the names replaced in the Canadian version. However, they forgot to change a name here and there in the Canadian version. Kinda weird having Ash or Misty suddenly being referred to as Sacha or Ondine out of nowhere.
  • The Spanish dub did this to fix a translation issue with the games — most moves kept their game names, but "Counter" was correctly translated as "Contraataque" (counter attack), not "Contador" (something that counts), which the games would eventually fix in Gen VI.
  • The Italian dub:
    • In earlier seasons, Meowth's name was pronounced "Meh-o", while in later seasons it's pronounced as something like "Meow" because it's closer to the international pronunciation.
    • In earlier seasons, many moves were called with different names than the ones used in the Italian game translation. The most memorable were the ones for Thunderbolt, Water Gun and Vine Whip, whose game names are "Fulmine", "Pistolacqua" and "Frustata" but in the anime for years they went as "Superfulmine" ("Super Thunderbolt"), "Getto D'Acqua" ("Water Stream") and "Stretta con Liane" ("Vine Wrap"). Halfway through Season 7 most of these mistakes were corrected, but "Superfulmine" was kept around until Season 11.
    • A very particular case is the one about Swift. Sometimes it's "Comete" ("Comets", the name used in the games), but most of the time it is also called "Attacco Rapido" (the name of Quick Attack, a completely different move) or "Velocità" ("Speed"), and in at least a pair of occasions they went with "Millestelle" ("Thousand Stars"). This problem was rampant in Season 10, when Ash's Aipom spammed Swift in most of the episodes.
    • When the first episodes of Black and White were aired as a preview, they mispronounced Snivy's name as "Sneevee". When the whole series aired later they redubbed the lines to give the correct pronunciation, but a pair of episodes after that use the "Sneevee" pronunciation again.
  • The English dub has some of this due to the differences between 4Kids and PUSA. This is most blatant when Misty appeared in Alola. 4Kids slightly changed Misty's personality but PUSA follows the Japanese script, not the 4Kids interpretation of the characters. As a result, Misty's character is rather off compared to how fans of the Original Series know her. She has Call Backs that make sense in Japanese but not in the dub, such as her bragging about her attractiveness or calling her Pokémon "beauties" and "steadies".
  • When Vincent mentions Kenta and Marina in an episode, their names were localized as Yoshi and Dani respectively. However, they were called Jimmy and Marina in the dub of The Legend of Thunder!
• Pokémon Adventures:
  • Nobody can seem to remember their Pokémon's nicknames for the first three arcs.
  • The translators can't decide whether or not (EN) Blue's sister is named May (as in The Electric Tale of Pikachu) or Daisy (as in the games). Especially bad since the English release was over a decade behind the Japanese at that point.
• The English dub of Mobile Suit Gundam SEED Destiny transforms Kira's calm character into a naïve and cocky person with some lines. In the original Japanese "I won't fight (ZAFT). Don't make me fight (ZAFT)." was changed to "I won't kill. Don't make me kill." even though he already made it clear he would shoot down anybody in his way in Gundam SEED. The video games series Dynasty Warriors takes this to the extreme when he says "Thanks to this sword Lacus gave me, I can start kicking butt!"
• Examples from Tokyo Mew Mew:
  • Mew Lettuce has one attack, Reborn Lettuce Rush. Mew Bridget from 4Kids Entertainment's Mew Mew Power was given two attacks; the second one just being the same attack flipped the other way.
  • 4Kids made Pudding/Kiki a homeless girl in her first appearance, but when her house was shown, they had the characters say that they just thought she was homeless and then dropped the whole thing.
    • The Portuguese dub is anything but consistent. After episode 26, suddenly, all the voices changed, and the character names changed, all the attack names changed, etc to match the Japanese version more closely than the first half of the series (which was based off the 4Kids dub). The French, Hebrew, and Serbian dubs also continued past the point where 4Kids left off. They were mostly consistent on that regard, but the Serbian dub had other problems, such as the characters' attack names changing almost every episode!
    • The Tokyopop translation of the English manga is also bad with this. Ichigo's age changed from 11 to 12 to 13, and back to 11. Her weapon name also changed from "Sutoro Bell Bell" to the slightly more accurate "Strawberry Bell Bell" after the first chapter (the correct name is just Strawberry Bell). Kimera animals were also called "Chimera animals" in the first volume and Kirema animas in all subsequent volumes.
• As noted in the page quote, The '90s English dub of Sailor Moon practically turned this into an art form. Expect any attack, villain organization, MacGuffin, etc to have multiple names. Most egregiously Moon Princess Halation from R was called Moon Scepter Elimination from its first appearance until dub episode 65, then after a 3 year hiatus that ended with the show Uncancelled, it was called Moon Scepter Activation for the final 17 episodes of the season, Moon Princess Elimination in the R movie and finally Moon Scepter Elimination once more in the first episode of S. Similarly, Moon Tiara Action was typically referred to as Moon Tiara Magic, and in one episode, Moon Tiara Vaporize. The only time the attack was named correctly was when it was used in S.
  • The consistency problem got even worse in the last two seasons due to production of the show being rushed in order to get 77 episodes dubbed and aired within a 6 month time frame.
  • Even the manga has its moments, most noticeably a page in the Dream Arc when it was first printed in Mixx/Tokyopop's Smile. The Outer Guardians kept their names - Haruka, Michiru, Setsuna and Hotaru. While Haruka is playing with Hotaru, she calls her Jenny. This happens only on that one page and never happens again. Another page referred to Haruka as "Alex Haruka" and "Alex", which thankfully also got corrected in later printings.
  • While we're on the subject of Sailor Moon, the By the Power of Grayskull! and Calling Your Attacks phrases in the Russian dub are a complete mess. First, the fourth and fifth seasons were dubbed by a different team, which scrapped almost all previous established translations. And even in the first three, they were often translated inconsistently. More weirdness arises when you notice that all five transformation spells used by Usagi, after going through some translation variations, were set to exactly the same phrase. Talk about logic.
  • Pales in comparison to the Brazilian version. While later seasons were slightly (but only slightly) more consistent, Sailor Moon R was a total mess (done by a different studio than the first season) to the point that brazilian fans still make fun of it to this day. Nearly every single attack name had at least two variants, though mainly the "Moon Princess Halation" attack which had a different name per episode (one of them even had the same attack called by two different names!!). A favorite was "By the Powers of the Moon Princess' Tiara!". Because her tiara has everything to do with the attack.
  • In the first season of the Brazilian Dub, the term "Sailor Senshi" was usually translated as "Sailor Guerreiras" (Sailor Warriors). After the uncancelling and studio swap, suddenly they were... "the Sailor Moons" (which made the In the Name of the Moon speech ridiculously Narmy, since Sailor Moon said her name three times ^note "I'm a Sailor Moon! Who fights for love and justice! I'm Sailor Moon! Sailor Moon will punish you in the name of the moon"). After 70% of the R season it was changed to sometimes-Sailor and sometimes-Sailor Guerreiras, and so it stayed for all subsequent seasons.
  • The French manga is terrible for this. Attack names are translated differently almost every time (or not translated as the case may be — sometimes they're left in their original English form), and on a couple of occasions, even the characters' names are inconsistent. (For example, Setsuna, who is called Severine in French, is once referred to as "Setusna".)
  • One especially bad English dub example is the Moon Gorgeous Meditation. When Sailor Moon gets a proper animation for it, it's named accurately. However the first two or three times she uses it before Pegasus gives her a power-up, it's referred to as "Super Moon Target." In the Japanese original, she didn't say anything.
  • And then there's the many different names for the Legendary Silver Crystal. Sailor Moon Abridged had a field day with this in episodes 18 and 19.
  • The Swedish dub had several examples of this, the most egregious of which was Sailor Moon's catchphrase when transforming in the first season, which in any given episode could be any one of "Moon prism, transform me!", "Moon prism!", "Moon prism power, transform me", "Moon prism power" or "Moon power, transform me".
  • Although the Latin Spanish dub is mostly consistent, it still has some inconsistencies. The most notorious example is that between episodes 66 to 68 Chibiusa's name varied randomly between Rini and Chibiusa, but in the rest of the series her name stayed as Rini.
  • The first Greek dub of ANT 1 is known to have many translation errors, the most notorious being the fact that Sailor Mercury was called Sailor Kronos during the first two seasons. Because Kronos in Greek means Saturn, this caused problems when dubbing the third season due to Sailor Saturn's debut, so Mercury was renamed Sailor Ermis and Saturn adopted the name Sailor Kronos. Even after this, Mercury was still called "Kronos" in some scenes.
• In the English dub of Rurouni Kenshin, the actors inconsistently pronounce the Japanese names of characters and techniques.
  • Yahiko's name, the first time it was uttered, the character itself pronounced it as Yah-ee-co. Every subsequent use of his name is pronounced as Yah-he-co.
  • In the Hispanic American Dub, the Sakabato has three names. the Correct but less used "Espada de filo invertido" (Inverted blade Sword), something just plain wrong "Espada de Doble Filo" (Doublle edge sword), and the one they decided to use the most "Espada sin filo" (Edgeless sword), not a true translation but it works. Kaoru in the first episode has one scene she has remorse for not having asked Kenshin his name before he left, yet in the next scene she calls him by name without he even telling her, and then latter she finally does ask him for his name.
  • In the Brazilian dub, Kenshin's alias was translated at first as "Battousai, the Slasher", but later became "Battousai, the Killer". Interestingly, the Oniwabanshuu was first (consistently) adapted as "The Oni Gang", but in one of the later fillers it reverted back to "Oniwanbashuu" out of nowhere.
• Naruto:
  • In the English dub, Naruto says, after his battle with Neji, that he couldn't graduate because he couldn't master the shadow clone jutsu. What he was supposed to say was just 'clone jutsu': the shadow clone jutsu is a forbidden technique not taught to academy students.
  • In the uncut English dub, Rock Lee takes a bottle of sake believing it to be his medicine, yet Guy and Tsunade call it "elixir" a couple times before correctly referring to it as sake. They called it "elixir" because the T.V. broadcast couldn't mention alcohol, so the mistake was most likely not caught before the episode was released.
  • English dub: At first, the hero of Jiraiya's novel was translated as saying "Give up, huh? Yeah, about that..." instead of "Give up trying to make me give up!" When Naruto defeats Pain, he says the latter translation instead of how it was translated before. This, unfortunately lessens the emotional impact of the scene somewhat since you don't find out Naruto was quoting his master's novel until a later scene where Nagato reads the book, and the hero says the latter translation.
  • English dub: During the first few episodes of the Wave Arc, "sharingan" was pronounced "sharingan", as in the original Japanese. It soon switched over to "sharingan", where it remained for the rest of the show.
  • When ANBU was first mentioned in the Swedish release, it was called LönnSpec, short for Specialstyrkan för Lönnmordsteknik (The special force for assassination technique). In all subsequent mentions, it was changed to Hemliga falangen, "The secret phalanx."
  • The English dub initially rendered Naruto's "dattebayo" verbal tic as "believe it," but it was dropped after a few arcs because everyone agreed it got annoying real fast. This became a problem in Shippuden, when it was revealed that Naruto unwittingly inherited the catchphrase from his mother, whose sometimes ended her sentences with "dattebane." The English dub rendered it as "you know?", and then had Naruto use the verbal tic sparingly afterwards to maintain consistency.
• Cannon chips in MegaMan NT Warrior wavered between "Cannon" or "Laser Blast". They had a continuity for about three instances on whether the chip was used in "summon" mode or "weapon" mode, but that scarcely excuses it, especially when they neatly broke that. Oh, and "High Cannon" and "Mega Cannon" are called fairly consistently. They did that with the names of the characters too, with powers and character names diverging incredibly from the English translation of the very game series it's based on, leading to many characters having two completely different English names.
  • The English dub of Mega Man Star Force was no better. Misora Hibiki became Sonia Strumm in the game and Sonia Sky in the anime dub. Harp was Lyra in the game but still combined with Sonia to become Harp Note, yet the dub changed the name to Lyra Note. Then there was a random moment where MegaMan called his attack as "Rock Buster."
  • The 2nd game uses "Gospel" (After Bass's Evil Counterpart for Rush) for the villains and doesn't change it in the English version (where the original "Gospel" is known as "Treble" in the main series). The fact that their logo is a giant G and "Treble" not being a good name for an evil organization is believed to be behind this. In the anime dub, the name was changed to "Grave", since the censors probably didn't approve "Gospel".
• The Digimon dubs had quite a problem with this, with the names and attacks of characters alternating between the ones used in the show in Japanese and the ones used in the merchandise (or previous show appearances) in English. Digimon Adventure 02 is terrible about the same characters - not different Digimon of the same type, but the very same characters - using different names for the same attack. (Bonus points if the name was used for a different attack last time we heard it.) Since Digimon is big on Calling Your Attacks, to the point where it's often speculated that a Digimon cannot use an attack without saying it, it's very glaring when yesterday's Flaming Fist is today's Fire Rocket.
  • Different attacks would also be called the same thing a lot as well. WarGreymon's Terra Force is the giant fireball throw, Great Tornado is his spinning drill attack, Mega Claw is his hack-and-slash technique. The dub called ALL of those attacks Terra Force at some point or another, except when it called Great Tornado Mega Claw.
  • In later dubbed series, this occurs ridiculously often between the dub of the television show and the US merchandise - for example, Dynasmon is referred to as Dunasmon in the card game, while Crusadermon retains his original name of LordKnightmon. As of Digimon Frontier, it's clear that Bandai of America simply stopped caring - of all the Digimon introduced in Frontier, absolutely none of them are listed as having the same attacks in the merchandise as they do in the anime, or in the Japanese media for that matter! Then there are the name inconsistencies - aside from the aforementioned Dynasmon and Crusadermon, Bandai also makes mistakes about "Lanamon"^note Ranamon in the dub anime and Japanese material, "Sephirothmon"^note Sakkakumon in the dub anime, Sefirotmon in Japanese material, "Velgrmon"^note Velgemon in the dub anime, Velgmon in Japanese material and most annoyingly of all, "Kerpymon"^note Cherubimon literally everywhere else, and for good reason; this name is unfortunately as old as 02. The kicker here? According to Adventure dub director Jeff Nimoy, Bandai actually gave the dubbers what names to use for things, at least in the Adventure days, so either they stopped caring and doing that... or they were deliberately fucking with the dubbers by changing names after giving them.
  • The Disney dubs of the various movies were made well after the original Saban dubs aired and contain a lot of inconsistencies in localization. For instance, in the Tamers movies, Japanese flags are removed and Okinawa is referred to as just "the island" in spite of the TV series having no issues with referencing Okinawa or the Japanese setting, and the Barbie doll nudity is covered with glints of light in spite of the Saban dub of the TV series keeping it unchanged. Kai is also given a different voice than what he had in the series.
  • In the first airing of a 02 dub episode, a bunch of YukimiBotamon were referred to by this name, but the on-screen text showed "SnowBotamon" (English name used in Bandai's merchandise). Later reruns corrected the text, but the confusion remained.
  • In Tamers and Frontier, the show writers seemed to be much freer to go their own way with terminology. Characters often get new names and attacks, or retain their Japanese ones, when The Merch was totally different. This is often seen as a good thing, though - the folks who'd made the trading cards had no idea what the animators would go on to make the attacks do when brought to television. Once things were left to the writers, we saw the end of the oddities that came from using the Bandai names sight unseen in season one, such as attacks that could not possibly have been named with the eventual onscreen actions in mind (Twin Fang = Saber Leomon firing his hair.) and seemingly meaningless names that were actually direct Romanizations of straightforward Gratuitous English ones (Kurisarimon = Chrysalimon), or even keeping the Japanese ones where the Bandai merch ones were lackuster or just different.
  • Meanwhile, in Digimon Data Squad, Falcomon's dub-Ultimate form, given the name Crowmon in the show, is inconsistent with the name it had been given in previous games: Yatagaramon. In addition, the aforementioned Crusadermon was - allegedly at the behest of Toei Animation - renamed LoadKnightmon - not Lord, Load. However, they actually let him be a guy this time.
  • Data Squad also switched some of the Royal Knights' attack names to the Japanese ones, instead of ones established in previous American series; for example, what was Gallantmon's "Shield of the Just" in Digimon Tamers became "Final Elysium" in Data Squad. But at least they didn't suddenly start calling him Dukemon - something that would not have been out of character for that season.
  • In Data Squad, it's like nobody had watched the previous series. Monster-of-the-week Digimon are almost guaranteed to use the Bandai of America names and attacks in defiance of the long-established terms - often with Mons who were much more than monsters of the week in series past. By this point, Digimon who have appeared in most series and had their names and attacks kept consistent are very few and far between; Agumon is the only one which immediately comes to mind, and as the one in Savers is a different subspecies it would actually have had an excuse to have different attack names!
  • The Brazilian dub has all the aforementioned flaws but is much worse. The dubbers can't decide whether to keep the Japanese names or the Bandai of America ones. One scene in Digimon Adventure 02 is particularly egregious:
    Kari: He is coming back!
    T.K.: As Myotismon? Or Venom Myotismon?
    Malo Myotismon: None of that. I am Belial Vamdemon!
    Digimon Analyser: Malo Myotismon, the final form of Myotismon (...)
  • Digimon Fusion, also suffered from this, namely when it comes to deciding which names they want to use for Digimon and the pronunciation of said names.
    • In one episode, Frigimon is dubbed as its original Japanese name, Yukidarumon, but it's changed right back to Frigimon in the next episode. Syakomon pronounces its name as SY-a-ko-mon, but the wording that appears right as it introduces itself spells it as Shakomon, not Syakomon. Most egregiously, when Mikey (Taiki in the Japanese version) uses Agumon's Digicard, Agumon's name ends up being spelled Augumon as soon as its name appears on the screen!
  • The Italian dub of Fusion, known as Digimon Fusion Battles, is filled with issues when it comes to naming Digimon. Some of them keep their western names like in the earlier series (Puppetmon, Frigimon), others have their western names except pronounced differently than in the older series (Beelzemon pronounced BELL-zemon rather than BEEL-zemon, Deputymon pronounced De-POO-timon rather than DE-putymon), other keep their Japanese names even when they used the western names in earlier series (Vamdemon, Dukemon). And the ones who always kept the Japanese names? We have again some pronounce changes (Cyberdramon is Cy-BEAR-dramon rather than Cyber-DRA-mon, Submarimon is Subma-REE-mon rather than SOOB-marimon) or even get misspelled from the original Japanese (Lilithmon is now Rirismon, Baalmon is now Barmon).
    • Another inconsistency in the Italian dub is how they treat the term "DigiXros". In casual dialogue it's localized as "Digifusione" ("Digifusion"), but when it's actually done they still say "DigiXros"
  • For some reason, the German dub of Digimon Frontier made all Holy Four Angel Digimon female and gave all of them female voice actors. But Patamon, the weaker and reborn version of Seraphimon, had the same male voice as the Patamon from Adventure.
  • The German dub of Digimon Data Squad gave some of the Digimon their Japanese names, despite some of them having had the Western names from previous series. Most notable are the members of the Royal Knights.
  • If there's a character that takes the cake franchisewise, that would be the fusion of WarGreymon and MetalGarurumon, Omegamon, named Omnimon in the dub. During the first few years of the franchise, there was no problem with his western name, until he was stablished as part of the Royal Knights, and Alphamon was created to be a Digimon that he would contrast with. The result, is that the consistency of his name in the West is minimal, switching between Omnimon and Omegamon with no regard, even in products where Alphamon is present or not.
• Transformers: Armada referred to the giant battleship Decepticon as both Tidal Wave and Shockwave, depending on the episode.
  • The show had more than its share of dub errors, though. Particularly, Megatron's partner Mini-Con is named Leader-1, in homage to Challenge Of The Go Bots, but the name "Leader-1" would be applied to almost every Mini-Con at least once. Also, many a Mini-Con reverted to the Japanese name (Swindle gets called Grid once, etc.).
  • Energon couldn't even bother to keep things consistent between lines of dialogue, let alone from episode to episode. In addition, for multiple episodes, no one could decide which Autobot was Cliffjumper or Downshift. It boggles the mind, really: production was rushed, and the translation that was incomplete, true, but an incomplete translation explains only times when a line didn't match the Super Link original. Here, there were times when the lines made no sense whatsoever as a response to what had just been said, or directly defied what we were witnessing onscreen at the same time. Worse, Cliffjumper even acquired Downshift's voice once.
  • This mostly fell by the wayside by the time Cybertron rolled around, chalking this up to Screwed by the Network. However, Cybertron had a few inconsistencies with Energon due to not originally being a sequel, which makes this particular example straddle the line between this trope and Too Long; Didn't Dub. There is, however, a straight-up example in Crosswise, who was called Smokescreen in the first few episodes he was in, though this was fixed for later broadcasts of said episodes. He was going to be a new Smokescreen, you see, but once they decided Cybertron would be a sequel to Armada and Energon... well, Armada Smokescreen looks nothing like Crosswise, acts nothing like Crosswise, and existed too much to have actually been frozen in Arctic ice for millennia prior to Professor Suzuki discovering him in Cybertron, which is Crosswise's origin.
  • In a subtitle example, one fansub group making Transformers: ★Headmasters English subtitles at first used the Japanese names for characters and factions. About halfway through, they switched to the American names.
  • The Hungarian dubbing of Armada and Cybertron topped the faults of the English version by making absolutely sure that at least one character in each Armada episode would deliver a line in another character's voice, and confused the Mini-Con names even further (for instance, Sparkplug didn't get a name for 10+ episodes). Cybertron (dubbed years earlier and by completely different people) also kept changing its voices around a lot, and handled the infamous Override gender-switch by having the character be male at first, then suddenly changing "him" into a female with no explanation.
  • An interesting inversion happened with regards to Unicron Trilogy Jetfire: In Japanese, he was called Jetfire in Armada, Skyfire in Energon, and Dreadrock in Cybertron, but was called Jetfire in all three series in English.
• The English dub of Cardcaptor Sakura suffered from this due to its fragmented episode run on Kids' WB!. Any cards that came from episodes not shown were explained through flashbacks that often portrayed the capture as happening differently from the actual episode. When the rest of the episodes were shown in other Anglophone countries, the flashbacks ended up making it look like Sakura was bad at remembering things.
• Examples from Yu-Gi-Oh!:
  • There were a few times where it took a while for them to figure out how to translate card names. Celtic Guardian's first appearance referred to it as "Elf Swordsman" (which is its original name), and Harpie Lady was referred to as "Harpie's Lady" a few times early on.
  • In the Italian translation of the manga, Celtic Guardian is randomly called "The Elf Warrior", "Elf Knight" or "Elvish Knight", and Harpie Lady became "Happy Lady".
  • "Monster Reborn" was called "Reborn the Monster" for a large portion of the first series. Lampshaded in The Abridged Series in which one episode Yami refers to the card as "Reborn the Monster", and both times a message is seen on screen showing "Monster Reborn".
  • Again in the Italian version of the manga, In the first panel Ghost Kotsuzuka is named, the named is translated as "The funerary ashes ghost". In every other panel, it's just Ghost Kotsuzuka.
  • The Latin American Spanish dub was considered one of the best dubs, but had the bad luck of changing dub studios and directors (fortunately, the main voice cast didn't change). Despite eventually correcting Reborn the Monster to Monster Reborn, the Latin American Spanish dub keep naming the card the same way ("Renace el Monstruo") for quite a time. Then, for some reason, they started to call the card "Resurrection of the Monster" (probably a garbled version of its Japanese name, "Resurrection of the Dead." Also, they used to name Obelisk the Tormentor using a literal translation (which, in this case, was okay), Obelisco el Atormentador, but the second time the card was named, it was called "Obelisk el Atormentador" for no reason. After a bit of time, they named the translated card "El atormentador Obelisk". And the Dark Magician Girl, who at first was called "Maga Oscura", which was okay, after some studio change, they started calling her "La dama del Mago Oscuro" (which can be translated as "Lady of the Dark Magician", and the way it sounds implies they are a couple). Probably the translators were Shippers.
  • In the Italian dub Dark Magician Girl is usually called "Giovane Maga Nera" ("Young Dark Magician"), but in the Pyramid of Light movie she is instead called "Ragazza del Mago Nero" ("Dark Magician's girlfriend").
• The English translation of the Azumanga Daioh manga has quite a few cases of this. Perhaps the most notable example is that the subject Yukari-sensei teaches is initially changed to Spanish, but later on is kept as the original English (probably as the translators realized that the substitution would ruin some gags later on).
  • The English dub of the show has it just as bad. Yukari becomes a "language" teacher. One of the foreigners becomes Spanish, while the one who sets up the Blah, Blah, Blah joke imitates the Engrish of the Japanese version. All other instances of Engrish are mutated into generally easy French and Spanish phrases, with at least one instance where the characters just add an "-o" to the ends of normal English words (though this was obviously intended to get by on the Rule of Funny). It only actually really ruins one gag, though.
    Yukari: AI HABU NASHINGU MOA TSU TIICHI YUU!^note "I have nothing more to teach you!"
    Tomo: SANKUSU, MISU YUKARI!^note "Thanks, Miss Yukari!"
  • Additionally, while Chiyo is always referred to as "Chiyo-chan" in the dub, Chiyo herself refers to "Miss Osaka", and "Miss Sakaki", etc. On the other hand, "Yukari-sensei" being called "Miss Yukari" is understandable, especially since one episode (in the original Japanese version) has Tomo(-chan) calling her "Miss Yukari" in English.
• Almost every manga TokyoPop has ever translated, ever. This goes double for Sailor Moon.
  • Their anniversary re-release of Magic Knight Rayearth actually fixed the issues with this it used to have, and also repaired some things that were omitted or intentionally mistranslated in the original release. Said release was already one of the best from the period when they were still called "MiXX Comix", which isn't saying much.
• ADV's English dubs of the two Zone of the Enders anime (the OVA "Idolo" and the TV series "Dolores, i") are a consistency freak's nightmare. Nearly every instance of name-dropping from the three video games is horribly butchered: the organization BAHRAM is called Bufram, villain Nohman is addressed as Norman, the events of the first game are said to have happened on a colony called Antiria instead of Antillia...there's even one brutally egregious case of "Orbital Flame" instead of "Orbital Frame" in the first episode (though later episodes do not repeat this mistake). On the upside, the English voicework apart from these annoying inconsistencies is excellent; at the very least it's leaps and bounds beyond the borderline "Blind Idiot" Translation made by Konami for the two PS2 titles...
• The Death Note English dub at first varied between leaving the word shinigami untranslated and translating it as 'god of death'. They eventually went with the former. This was probably intentional, so it would be clear what the word shinigami meant. The same thing is done in the manga. The words 'gods of death' are also used in a message from Kira to L while written in English in the manga. The word 'shinigami' could not have been used in that context.
• The half of the episodes of GaoGaiGar that were dubbed were very inconsistent about a lot of pronunciations. For instance the the last syllable in the titular mecha is sometimes pronounced "gar" and other times it's "ger". Sometimes it seems to vary by character.
• The Bleach dub can't seem to make up its mind whether the little girl modsoul is named Linin, Rinin, Rilin, Lilin, or something else entirely. Officially, it's "Lirin", but the voice actors seem to make a point of pronouncing it ambiguously, making it sound almost like "Ririn".
• The dub of Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann has a minor, but still incredibly bizarre case where the name in the dialogue for a certain mecha contradicts the subtitles that were shown half a second earlier. The mecha that transformed at the end of the 25th episode was called "Super Galactic" by the translation of the Boss Subtitles, but then all the people called it "Super Galaxy".
• Lyrical Nanoha:
  • Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha suffers from this, with Fate's familiar being named either Alf, Arf, or Aruf depending on the disc. Although the season one dub consistently calls Nanoha's weapon the Raging Heart, the subs start with Raging and then switch it out for Raising, which was also used for the A's dub.
  • In the Japanese version of episode 12, Fate calls her Thunder Smasher attack Thunder Buster. The English dub fixed that mistake.
  • In Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha A's, the Belkan Intelligent Device Graf Eisen has the abilities "Panzerschild" (armor shield) and "Panzerhindernis" (armor obstacle), and the intelligent device Laevatein has the ability "Panzergeist" (armor spirit). Geneon's subtitles translate "panzer" as "tank" for Graf Eisen's abilities, but translate it as "armor" for Laevatein's ability. The fact that there aren't any tanks in this show, and that these are all defensive abilities, might suggest that it should be "armor" (or "armored"; the correct adjective forms would be "gepanzert", "gepanzertes", and "gepanzert", respectively).
  • During the final battle scene of the The Movie 2nd A's commentary, the cast (including Fate herself) mistakenly call Fate's Plasma Zanber Breaker "Jet Zanber", which is a completely different attack.
• It's not an inconsistent dub, but there's contradiction among the subtitles, the eye catches, and various other things at two whether GunBuster (both the machine and the series itself) is supposed to be two words (Gun Buster), one regular word (Gunbuster), or a CamelCase word (GunBuster).
• The Ranma ½ manga by Viz ran into this during the "Aging Mushrooms" (called "Mushrooms of Time" in the English version) storyline. After consuming one of the titular items, which make you as old as the mushroom is long (in centimeters,) Ryouga turns into a little 6 year-old kid. Later on, he's fed a 3cm mushroom and becomes a three year-old, and he gets back at Ranma with the "Explosive Pulverization" technique (the Bakusai Tenketsu, which Viz itself had always translated as "Breaking Point") and he gains a three year-old's lisp. Even worse, when he eats a 10cm mushroom, he keeps the lisp even though he didn't have one when he was six.
  • The Hiryuushoutenha ("Flying Dragon Ascend-to-Heaven Blast") gets a new translation every time it's called out.
• Negima! Magister Negi Magi:
  • The manga had some problems with this, especially in the first few volumes. They're fairly minor for the most part but there are two gratuitous instances: Chamo is variously referred (by the same characters) as an ermine, rat, weasel, or ferret, before they finally confirmed him as an ermine. Then there was the early incident where Negi's father was referred to as the "Southern Master" for a volume before the translators realized that it makes no sense and switched to the correct "Thousand Master". Fortunately, later editions of that volume fixed it.
  • Takamichi's note for Negi on Evangeline is supposed to read "talk to me if she becomes a problem," since she's an evil vampire with a personal vendetta against Negi, specifically. The official English translation is "Ask her advice if you're in trouble," making it seem as though Takamichi was trying to get Negi killed.
  • Chachamaru's surname was said to be "Rakuso" at first, then "Karakuri" later on.
  • They really couldn't decide on what Nodoka's nickname was either: the early volumes used "Library Girl" or "Librarian" before switching over to the more literal "Bookstore".
  • Fortunately, the later Omnibus editions of the early volumes fix all of these problems, due to being re-translated by the same people doing the current translations.
• The Dark Horse translation of School Zone can't seem to decide whether it should be Yokai, Youkai, or Monster. In the summaries of previous volumes and character bios, they even manage to render it as Yosuke — apparently confusing Nanka Youkai with Nanka Yosuke, the person it's possessing. There is also a character who's named Yoshiko in the first volume, and Miko in the later volumes.
• The Shaman King Brazilian dub suffered from this in spades; the only attack that got a consistent renaming was Ren's Chuuka Zanmai ("Golden Tower in Action" in the dub), every other had a different name per episode. For example, Yoh's trademark attack (Shinkuu Budda Giri) was called Budda Slash, Budda Attack, Amida Style Attack, Amida Attack, Shinkuu Budda Giri, and "Haaaryyyaaahhhgggh!".
• Fullmetal Alchemist:
  • There is a joke of sorts wherein characters generally believe that May Chang's pet miniature panda is some kind of cat. Some of the English dub episodes had it be correctly identified as a panda, whereas a later episode used the cat confusion.
  • They also weren't sure whether a country should be called Ishval or Ishbal, and then they tried to stick an R in there somewhere once. See the series' Inconsistent Spelling entry for further giggles.
  • Some number of episodes into the dub of Brotherhood, the characters abruptly start referring to the Gate (as it had been called not only up to that point in the show, but throughout the entire Fullmetal Alchemist (2003)) as "the Portal" for no adequately explained reason.
  • While the Australian translation is generally quite good with consistency and manages to translate most names correctly, it can't decide whether the name of the lizard chimera working under Greed is Bido or Pete. Also Xerxes was called Lebis the first time it was mentioned but was changed appropriately in every subsequent mention. The American version is much worse...while not in the anime, the manga translation referred to the country as "Cselksess." Where they got that from is anyone's guess.
  • Also in the Australian version, the Briggs mountains were called the "Bux" mountains when first mentioned. They also got Julio Comanche's (The Silver Alchemist) first name wrong, calling him Joliot.
• Neon Genesis Evangelion and Rebuild of Evangelion.
  • The name for what Kaworu (and in 3.0 Asuka) call mankind is "Lilim" in the ADV dub of the series and "Lilin" in the Manga Entertainment dub of the NGE movies. For Rebuild, Studio Khara fixed this before it even came up: the preview at the end of 1.0 flashed "Lilin" on the screen, well before the word first came up in dialogue in 3.0.
  • In NGE, Adam's form at the Second Impact is called hikari no kyōjin, which was correctly translated as "giant of light". However, Rebuild 2.0 has a scene clearly reminiscent of the Second Impact in NGE, in which Eva-01 takes a form with the same Japanese name, which Studio Khara adapted to English as "Radiant Giant". The names of the latter form only appear in All There in the Manual, and the forms probably have no relation to each other other than being a Mythology Gag.
  • The localization of the manga adaptation is somewhat inconsistent about whether to include honorifics; for example, Rei calls Shinji "Ikari-kun" in some scenes and "Ikari" in others.
  • In the English dub, "Eva" is pronounced like "ey-va" in the series, while in End Of Evangelion it's closer to "evva". Going by the Greek/Latin form of both "evangel" and "Eve", it should be pronounced "ey-va". Going by the Japanese, it's either or.
• One Piece:
  • The manga was affected by the 4Kids dub starting up, changing Zoro's name to Zolo, despite letting other characters keep their original names (for example, Smoker is called Chaser on the 4Kids dub, but is called "Smoker" in the manga). Considering there was also copyright problems with Zorro, it probably would've had to happen eventually, and it's been that way since, making this a relatively minor example. Or not as since Funimation gained the anime rights, they've been calling him Zoro with no legal troubles at all, along with every piece of One Piece media except for the official manga.
  • The English manga is inconsistent with Buggy the Clown's Verbal Tic, hade ni, which Funimation consistently translates as "flashy" (for example, "Die flashily!"). Most of the time it's not even used, but other times it's been translated as "gloriously," "humor me," and "lavishly."
  • For years, all official translations referred to the island at the end of the Grand Line as "Raftel". However, Chapter 967 of the manga, released over 20 years after the start of the series, establishes it's actually supposed to be "Laugh Tale", something translations would reflect going forward.
  • The official translation is also inconsistent on whether or not they want to translate Character names. For example, the leaders of the Mink Tribe, Inuarashi and Nekomamushi, both have their names translated in the official sub/dub as "Dog Storm" and "Cat Viper". Yet there are plenty of other characters whose names can technically be translated that are left alone, such as Nami which can translate to "Wave", and Bartholomew Kuma whose name literally means "Bear".
• Dragon Ball Z:
  • The Hungarian dub had trouble with the name of the Kamehameha, going through at least six different names, including "Lifeforce Wave", "Highest Power", "Magical Force", "Magic Ray", "Personality Beam" and the simple "Lightning", and switching back and forth between them, sometimes within the same episode. Since Hungarian dubs are usually pretty good compared to most, it's possible that this was a quirk carried over from the French dub.
  • It probably was, since the Spanish dub is also based on the French one and also has that issue ("Cameame Waves"? "Vital Wave"? "Infinite Light"?). The opposite also happened, with "Vital Wave" (The "normal" name for the Kamehameha) also being used for the Kikouhou, the Taiyou-ken, the Kaioh-ken, several unnamed ki attacks, and more. The Taiyou-ken (Solar Fist) also went by several names, such as "Solar Beam", "Solar Fist" (Gasp!), "Photoelectric Waves" (Said by Goku, go figure) and the crowner, "Final Flash". By Cell. One episode BEFORE Vegeta used the real Final Flash. Not even the titular McGuffins are safe, being "magical balls" (Most things are simply "magical X" on this dub for some reason) but sometimes becoming "crystal balls" or even "dragon balls". There's also calling Saiyans "Space Warriors" and Super Saiyans "Super Warriors", but then using "Super Warriors" for vanilla Saiyans in some movies, and actually calling them "Saiyans" (In English) on early GT. Even the manga fell to this one, calling them "Saiyajins" in Gratuitous Japanese at first, and by extension "Super Saiyajin" later on... until the Androids arc, where they used "Super Warriors" like the anime. Sometimes. To the point of using both terms on the same page. The manga also called the Genki Dama "fireball" on its first appearance and "Energy Ball" everywhere else. And that's not even getting to current video games being translated from the USA versions resulting in even more name changes for minor characters.
  • Since then, Dragon Ball Kai got dubbed in French and is better than the original in all aspects. Closer to the Japanese original, secondary characters are named and characters keep their voice actors. Most importantly, 99% less translation errors.
  • The Latin American Spanish dub had also its own share of inconcistencies: First, in early episodes, both Pilaf and Shen Long had no name (they were referred to as "The Emperor" and "The Dragon God", respectively), until the Red Ribbon saga when their names were finally said. Uupa on his first appeareance was called Nube (lit. "Cloud") and was a girl; by the next episode he was aptly renamed Uupa and got a gender change. Later, in the Z series, Dr. Gero was strangely called Dr. Maki and after a few episodes he reverted to his Japanese name. But maybe the worst offender is planet Namek, which during the Saiyan and Freezer sagas was named "Planeta Namekusei" ("Planet Planet Namek", in a weird case of Gratuitous Japanese). After the arc had ended the planet got renamed as Planeta Nameku. Also, secondary characters changed voices every now and then.
  • Due to a complex licensing situation, people in the UK got five different dubs of the series on Cartoon Network alone. This created countless inconsistencies regarding names, voices and music.
  • In the English version of Dragon Ball Z, Piccolo went by the pseudonym "Ma Junior" at the World Martial Arts Tournament, with his reasoning that it was what he used last time he entered the tournament. In the Dragon Ball dub, he went by the name "Junior" (No "Ma") instead. Also, in the edited version of Dragon Ball Z Kai he uses the "Special Beam Cannon" on Raditz, only for it to be the "Makankosappo" in the next episode's flashback. This was averted in the uncut dub in that case, however was later invoked when Goku uses the "Solar Flare" and Krillin does the "Taiyou-ken".
  • Mr. Satan was called "Hercule" (sourced from his French dub name) in the broadcast version of the English dub, and in most video games and merchandise. The uncut version of the dub, as presented on DVD, usually refers to him as Mr. Satan, but the remastered version accidentally used a few takes calling him Hercule.
  • Raditz was said to be faster than the speed of light, yet much later on Goku's instant transmission was described as allowing him to move at the speed of light. (Both of these are inaccurate FYI, as in the original Piccolo just said that Raditz was amazingly fast and Instant Transmission, like its name implies, is actually instant).
  • Another oddity of the Hungarian dub was Frieza's name, which was at first translated as Dermesztina ("Freezetina"), but was changed to Dermesztő ("Freezer") when it became apparent that he's a guy. Some changes also took place when they started dubbing Dragon Ball GT — most of the French carryover names were left as they were, but the Trunk was restored to Trunks, as was Mr. Momo to Mr. Popo. Also, Vegeta finally began calling Son Goku by his Sayan name Kakarot, while in the dub of Z, he constantly referred to him as Songoku, save for a single episode in which Kakarot was rendered as Cachalote (pronounced "Kaah-shaah-low" in the dub) — another oddity of the French dub, which all other redubs based on the French version shared.
  • Yet again an inconsistency stemming from the French localization: Maron is sometimes called Marlene.
  • In the Danish version, spawned from the French version, most of the translation errors of that version are fixed... but a new one is added in the form of the so-called Gendi Kama.
  • In the Italian dub of Dragon Ball, King Piccolo was renamed "Al Satan"... which was already used as Gyumaoh/Ox King's dub name. When the latter reappeared in the last episodes of the show, his name was changed to "Gyuma", a shortened version of the Japanese name.
  • For years, the Italian dub of the Dragon Ball anime referred to Androids 17 and 18 as cyborgs, calling them C-17 and C-18 (of course, the C is for "Cyborg"). Starting from the Universe Survival Arc of Dragon Ball Super, they started to call them androids, while still calling them C-17 and C-18.
  • In the Greek dub, Zarbon is a woman. Yet, in episodes 78 and 104, the dub calls him a "he". You can read more inconsistencies of the Greek dub here.
• The Slayers: Super-Explosive Demon Story manga, as translated by Central Park Media, has some inconsistencies in how names are spelled:
  • The silver beasts are initially called "Zanafer", then later called "Xanasphar". (Most other versions of Slayers spell it "Zanaffar".)
  • The city with the Flagoon tree is initially called "Sylarg", then later called "Sairaag". (Most other versions of Slayers spell it "Sairaag".)
  • The priestess from that city is called both "Sylphiel" and "Sylfeer", seemingly at random. There was even one page that had both spellings used on it. (Most other versions of Slayers spell it "Sylphiel".)
• Saint Seiya
  • The Latin American dub, despite its otherwise excellent quality, has this problem with the techniques of a few characters. For example: Shaina's technique was called "Thunder Claw" in the original Japanese, while in the aformentioned dub she would go around shouting "A mí cobra!!" and/or "El poder de la cobra!!" (lit. "To me, cobra!" and "The power of the cobra!") as a direct reference to the visuals accompanying the technique. Particulary egregious is the case of Shiryu who had the same technique with four different names.
  • In the Asgard Saga, Hilda's castle Valhalla was pronounced waruhara in the Japanese version. Ergo, the dub would call it either Waruhala, Warukaya, Varukaya, and once, but only once, Valhalla.
  • The Netflix English dub switches to calling the Saints "Knights" and their cloth "Armor" beginning with episode 42 due to Executive Meddling from Netflix to match their reboot. However, alternate takes were recorded with the correct terminology for future use in case the dub got reissued elsewhere.
• Eureka Seven has a couple of minor inconsistencies. For a large part of the series, the name of the Scub Coral aliens is translated as "the Coralian" (in the plural), before it's switched over to "the Coralians." Also, Dewey's flagship is called the Galaxy on at least one occasion, but is later kept untranslated as the Ginga.
  • Matthieu mispronounces Eureka's name in episode 6.
• The English dub of FLCL seems incapable of making up its mind as to whether or not to use honorifics. One scene they'll be all over the place, the next, nada. Might be more Rule of Funny though.
• The first volume of the Rave Master manga names Haru's Morph Weapon sword by its Japanese name, "The Ten Commandments." After that however, it's always referred to as the "Ten Powers" instead.
• The English dub of Inuyasha has been known to switch between using "Lady" or leaving the honorific "-sama" untranslated. When it's really bad, they do this in the same sentence. This was part of the dubs Early-Installment Weirdness along with other characters using the same antiquated speech as Kaede and some mangled Japanese names/words. The dub would settle into its groove by the time Sango joined the cast.
  • The English dub of the original series was pretty consistent with translations of Calling Your Attacks. The dub of The Final Act, being released primarily straight to DVD wouldn't bother with any of the new attacks introduced. This leads to "Wind Scar" appearing alongside "Meidō Zangetsuha".
  • Fun fact about the Brazilian dub: at first the series was translated by Fernando Janson, who kept the terminology pretty consistent throughout the first half of the series. For the second half, he shared his translation duties with Fred Correa, who apparently did not bother to research the established translations of terminology and made up new ones (sometimes inconsistent within themselves). Thus, the second half of the Brazilian dub is known for being consistently inconsistent: for example, the term "han'you" (Viz: half-demon) would change between "half-youkai" (Janson), "semi-demon", or simply "hybrid" (Correa). Attack names also became a mess; Inuyasha's Bakuryūha (Viz: Backlash Wave) would vary between "Explosive Wave" (Janson), "Frontal Attack" (????) and, in one bizarre instance, "Bakuryuja" ^note  That was probably due to an overlap confusion with the LA Spanish script; "j" has the same sound as "h" in Spanish, but definetly not in Portuguese . But you can tell which translator is working on the episode you're about to watch: if Inuyasha opens the episode with (the accurately translated) "I'll destroy Narak[u] with the Tetsusaiga!", it was Janson. If he does so with (the bizarrely reinterpreted) "We'll destroy Narak[u] with our steel teeth!", it was Correa.
• The second English adaptation of Science Ninja Team Gatchaman (entitled G-Force: Guardians of Space) was a rush job, as Turner wanted to get the show done as quickly as possible for less cost. It is unknown how many writers besides Fred Ladd must have worked on the dub, but translation and dub name inconsistencies were prone to crop up:
  • Director Anderson is referred to as "Anderson" in some episodes, while others refer to him as "Commander Todd".
  • The country of Hontwarl was called "St. Pierre" in the first episode it appeared in, while the next two episodes suddenly called it "Satania".
  • In an example of attempted censorship, Dirk's parents are initially said to have "almost" been killed by Galactor, while the flashback scene of their deaths was edited out. A later episode states that Dirk's parents were in fact assassinated that many years ago, possibly because the writers realized they could no longer hide that plot point.
• The English dub of Gate Keepers translates the villain Akuma Hakushaku's name as "Baron Akuma." In the sequel series, Gate Keepers 21, he is called "Count Akuma" instead.
• [adult swim] bumps for Lupin III: Part II were inconsistent in how they mispronounced the title character's name — the ones that didn't pronounce it as "Loopin the Third" instead parsed it as "Lupin Three", as if it were the third series in a franchise simply named "Lupin".
  • The Italian dub of the red jacket series renamed Fujiko "Margot". The problem is that every other Italian dub of Lupin III media (including the earlier green jacket series) always kept her original name.
• The English dub of Cyborg 009 used "Professor Gilmore" and "Doctor Gilmore" very interchangeably, along with the actors experiencing difficulty over whether to pronounce 008's actual name (Pyunma) as "poon-ma" or "pyoon-ma". The dub of the "Gilmore's Notes" episode also had its script heavily diverge from the original, with the dubbed Gilmore claiming that he never got to meet the four first-generation cyborgs (001-004) as they were frozen before he came on to the project. A later episode would show this not to be the case. He also claims in the dub that 003 is over 80 years old, when she'd more likely be chronologically in her 50s for the time period that the adaptation takes place in (2001-2002).
  • The Pu'Awak sister Dinah was referred to as both "Dinah" and "Deena" when her name was brought up, owing to some possible mispronunciation trouble. The Latin American dub went with calling her "Deena".
  • The scriptwriter that handled the "Gilmore's Notes" episode, rather than re-using the sound and lines for the stock footage clips, opted to write new dialogue for the clips— some of which did not match up to what was said in the previously-dubbed episodes. For instance, one line of 004's was rewritten to have him say to 009; "Look at me, I'm just a freakshow!".
• Sgt. Frog: Tamama Impact is usually referred to by some variant of "Crazy Rage Breath", but occasionally they still call it Tamama Impact. Kogoro's transformation word also flips from "Attach-O!" to "Adhesion", the literal translation of the Japanese.
  • In the Italian dub:
    • The Tamama Impact is called "Tamama Attack" in the first season and "Tamama Impact" in the subsequent ones.
    • Koyuki's surname is changed from Azumaya to Gashitana for no apparent reason in later episodes.
    • Saburo's radio persona is usually called "DJ Mutsumi" as in the original version, but in some episodes is randomly changed to "Romantic DJ"
• The Italian dub of the Time Bokan Royal Revival OAV was for most of the time faithful to the dubs of the shows that aired back then, except that the names of the two henchmen from the first series were switched around. And three side characters from Yattodetaman were called with their Japanese names rather than the Italian ones. Cue enraged fans.
• The Italian dub of Cardfight!! Vanguard has issues with the names of some clans and cards. Sometimes you see stuff like the names of the various incarnations of Tsukuyomi being switched around, sometimes you have Nova Grapplers being translated literally as "Combattenti Nova" rather than the usual "Lottatori Stellari" ("Star Fighters"), and then they can't just call Oracle Think-Tank with the right name: the correct translation is "Oracolo Esperto" ("Expert Oracle"), as used in the actual cards, but in the anime you usually hear either "Guardiano dell'Oracolo" ("Guardian of the Oracle") or "Esperto dell'Oracolo" ("Expert of the Oracle"), and the former is actually a wrong version of "Guardiano Oracolo", the translation of the "Oracle Guardian" family of Oracle Think-Tank units.
  • Also, Blaster Blade and Battleraizer were translated as "Distruttore delle Lame" ("Destroyer of the Blades") and "Distruttore da Battaglia" ("Battle Destroyer"), being unaware that "Blaster" and "Raizer" were going to be important keywords later on. As a result, all the following "Blaster" and "Raizer" units keep the keyword in English with the effect getting a side note accounting that the first two units lacked the keyword in Italian. The anime, on the other hand, didn't care and kept translating the "Blaster" keyword as "Distruttore", giving different names to many cards: for example, Blaster Javelin is the literal "Blaster Giavellotto" in the card game and "Distruttore dei Giavellotti" ("Destroyer of the Javelins") in the anime.
• In the official Crunchyroll subtitles for Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid, Georgie is referred to as Josie in the preview for episode 10.
• The Italian dub of Yo Kai Watch translates the name of Next HarMEOWny (Jibanyan's favourite idol group) differently in almost every appearance they make. Between the anime, the manga and other pieces of merchandising such as books or magazines, they were called "Miao Armoniche", "Micine Armoniche", "Micine Miao Armoniche", "Le Gattine", "Vicina Armiaonia", "Super-micie", "Armiaoniche" and some other names too.
• In the English dub of Bakugan, Marucho is a boy in most episodes, which is his right gender, but in episode 11 he's referred to with female pronouns for whatever reason. The Romanian dub (and perhaps the dub of every language with gendered adjectives) is worse with this, because it translates him as a girl more often than the English dub does and in one episode he's dubbed as both a girl and a boy.
• In the Italian dub of My Hero Academia, the exact pronounciation of "Quirk" isn't clear: most characters pronounce it correctly, but some (All Might in some earlier episodes, Recovery Girl and Endeavor) pronounce it "qwork" instead.
• The English localization of Yuri is My Job! flip-flops between whether its names are in Japanese or Western order. At the end of Chapter 6 in Volume 1, Mitsuki's name is shown as "Yano Mitsuki," on her student ID (the Japanese order), but in Chapter 8 in Volume 2, which returns to that scene after the Whole Episode Flashback, the same student ID has "Mitsuki Yano."
• The Persona 3 manga initially has all the high-school age characters on a First-Name Basis- for example, Mitsuru calls Yukari by her first name in the first volume, long before they become friends. At the start of Volume 9, which starts shortly before the endgame, some of the cast start using last names- for example, Mitsuru calls Junpei "Iori." Something similar happens in the Persona 4 manga, around the start of Volume 10, which begins just after November 5.
• The English dub of the anime version of High Score Girl mostly calls Japanese consoles and games by their North American names, although later on the Turbografx-16 is referred to as PC-Engine, and the Super Famicom/NES version of Final Fantasy VI is still called Final Fantasy VI despite being renumbered III for North America.
• The English dub of The Legend of Snow White had a complete cast change after the first fourteen episodes, and along with the different voices, Snow White's squirell friend's name changed from "Pik" to "Pikki" and the forest's magical fog changed from "the Seven Colors Fog" to "the Rainbow Fog."
• The English dub of Asteroid in Love is inconsistent on name order. For example, Ao introduces herself to Misa as "Manaka Ao" in the third episode, while introducing herself as "Ao Manaka" while on Ishigaki island during the eleventh episode.
• Ayakashi Triangle: Matsuri starts off calling his partner "Ninokuru-senpai" or just "senpai", both of which the English version simplifies to "Ninokuru". After Matsuri switches the former to "Soga-senpai" a few volumes in, the English translates either phrase to "Soga" or "Ninokuru" for a while before settling on "Soga" for both.
• Very common in Hungarian anime dubs.
  • Hello! Sandybell was originally titled Sandy Bell when it aired on Szív TV. When it moved to RTL Klub's block Rajzfilmklub, the name of the series was suddenly changed to Helló, Sandybell!.
  • In the Hungarian dub of Ryu the Cave Boy, Tyranno's name is Siránó. However after episode 4, everyone began calling him Tirannusz for some reason, and no one brings up that his name for the first 3 episodes was something different.
• Made in Abyss: The Seven Seas release of Volume 11 leaves the term 獣相 untranslated, instead opting to transliterate it to "Juusou". Volume 12 then translates the term as "Beast-guise".